Features | Brass Band World

Sunday 8 May 2016

Pro Platform: David Childs interviews Paul Young

In this month’s Pro Platform feature, David Childs chats to Paul Young, Principal Trumpet of the Ulster Orchestra for 40 years. The former Enfield Citadel Band member charts his musical highlights and says that the ‘pro’ music business and the role of the professional musician have changed dramatically in the last few...read more

Sunday 8 May 2016

European Youth Championships

Malcolm Wood was on hand to sample the high quality playing at the European Youth Brass Band Championships After all the drama of Friday and Saturday when Cory and Brass Band Sachsen were crowned European Champions in their respective sections, there was just as much tension, excitement and high quality playing at...read more

Sunday 8 May 2016

European Soloist Competition

Jury member, Russell Gray, brings an adjudicator’s inside view of the four finalists’ performances at the recent European Soloist Competition in Lille It was a privilege to be invited to be part of the jury for this year’s European Solo Championships. After two days of heats with 24 fine young musicians, we...read more

Sunday 8 May 2016

German Challenge conquest

At the the 39th European Brass Band Contest, Italy lost its Challenge Section title to the German Brassband Sachsen - Brenden Wheeler was there for BBW. Since its inception in 1994, the Challenge Section of the European Championships has been an important platform for new ‘banding nations’, enabling bands from these countries...read more

Sunday 8 May 2016

Cory tops European Fraternity in Lille

The stage was set, for the champion bands of Europe to battle it out for the Continent’s top trophy, and Steven Mead was there to report for BBW: Fraternity by Thierry Deleruyelle tells the tragic story of an underground fire in nearby Douai, in 1906, when 1,000 miners lost their lives. The...read more

Sunday 8 May 2016

Geoffrey Brand at 90

The inspirational luminary elder statesman, Geoffrey Brand, reaches 90 in May – read the following extract of Dr. Robert Childs’s interview about the man and his music at 90. Extract from Dr. Robert Childs’s article: ‘I’ve known Geoffrey Brand for most of my life, I played under him in the NYBBGB and...read more

Thursday 7 April 2016

European Championship preview

In this month’s BBW Award-winning composer, Paul McGhee, previews the European Brass Band Championships’ Challenge, Premier and Development Youth section test-pieces, in advance of the Lille-based competition. Those pieces are: Challenge Section: Samson - Symphonic Poem for Brass Band by Rodolphe Schacher Premier Youth Section: Olympus by Philip Harper Development Youth Section:...read more